Evidence of meeting #36 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 40th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was information.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
I think properly said. Do you have any evidence to suggest there is the intention--and I'm not asking for opinion, but evidence--to defraud the Canadian people?
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
Sir, again, as I said, we are budget officers, not auditors. At a later stage of the game, people may ask the Auditor General to look at these issues, but we're not in a position to provide.... We don't use financial control information to look at issues of fraud or otherwise, or issues of that nature.
Conservative
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
It's not my job to look at those types of issues.
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
I appreciate that. I find that helpful. What I don't find helpful, though--not from you, sir--is innuendo, innuendo that frankly doesn't get us to any positive place. I think that comes back to my comment about “gotcha” politics.
As part of your assessment, sir, you said you wanted to make sure that the projects that are in play are good projects. I need to ask you, so I can clarify it in my head, first of all, who came up with the projects to begin with, infrastructure projects?
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
It's a government proposal. It's the government's proposal to put together a range of programs, including.... I think a lot of the conversation today has been around the infrastructure stimulus.
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
Yes, and that's what I'm referring to. In terms of that, who would come up with the list of the projects to be considered by all three levels of government? Which level of government?
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
These are tripartite programs, so they involve three levels of government in most cases.
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
Ultimately, in terms of decision-making, that's correct. I guess I can only refer in my own case, in my city of London, Ontario, where we looked at it and we relied on our municipal government to come up with a list of a variety of projects that we could somehow come back and assess. Is that not your understanding of how it was done across the country?
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
I'm sure a lot of them were generated at the municipality level. In fact, my staff and I briefed on the economic and sort of fiscal...we spent some time with the municipalities as well. I think a lot of the projects were driven at the municipality level.
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
Ultimately, who is responsible for delivery of these projects, seeing them to completion?
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
All these projects are paid for by Canadian taxpayers, and a lot of the delivery will be done at the local level.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Holder.
We will go now to Madam Bourgeois for cinq minutes, s'il vous plait.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Page, I would like to refer you to the top of page 2 of your presentation. You state "The last point is particularly important: whenever we highlight information gaps, it pertains to data already collected and held by the government."
What exactly do you mean? Does this mean that, when you highlight information gaps, this is information the government has but does not want to share? Can you give me an example, please?
Assistant Parliamentary Budget Officer, Expenditure and Revenue Analysis, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
In our report, the requirement we established was tied to those made by Treasury Board policies. In most cases, the figures are in the submissions to Treasury Board. There is information on the amount, the objective of the project and the expected results.
We have advised parliamentarians to concentrate on the type of information that is already available within the system. Departments are losing Treasury Board submissions, which already contain this type of information. Our goal was to not increase the costs of implementing this budget; our goal was to focus on existing information.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
If I understand correctly, you would like parliamentarians to approach the government in order to obtain the information. Is that correct?
Assistant Parliamentary Budget Officer, Expenditure and Revenue Analysis, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
On the Treasury Board website, there is a guide for the completion of submissions to Treasury Board. We feel that this type of information is very useful and it is available.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
Is the information that our questions are asking about today available on the Treasury Board site? Can we find out, for example, how many infrastructure projects have been granted to Quebec?
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
If that information is on the website, you may use it.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
Very well, we will check.
Still on page 2, on the issue of reporting, you ask how much money will be involved, for what, how many people will be helped, how many projects will be funded. That is a minimum. That is basic planning.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
Yes, it is basic, but it is the most important.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
Have the departments whom you have asked for an accounting of the infrastructure stimulus fund provided you with this basic information? Can you answer? This has to do with planning. In other words, were they doing the basic planning requested here?
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
As I said, it really is a minimum. Once we get an opportunity to look over this information...
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
You hope that you will find it.
As my colleague said, you are very diplomatic. In your report last October and in your speaking notes today, you expressed a great deal of frustration, as an auditor, either because you are not obtaining some documents or that the figures are not correct.
However, I would like you to explain why you would change your tack on page 3 of your notes to say "... the government is to be commended for beginning to provide legislators with relevant financial and operating information that could be used to exercise oversight of public monies...". Yet, you know full well that the government has not yet implemented the accrual accounting that we on this committee requested. Perhaps that would answer some of your questions about quarterly accounting. It would allow you to determine how much was committed to and how much was actually disbursed.